Staying the Master of Your Domain

As the college football season comes to a close and the NFL playoffs heat up, we’re ready to reach for a football cliché to describe the latest developments in the world of Internet domain names. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense…and sometimes it’s best to defend against offensiveness. That is the theory behind many companies’ willingness to pay to own domain names they don’t intend to use (think, “your–company–name.xxx”) simply to keep those domains out of the hands of cyber–squatters and other cyber–bullies.

As reported by the Rocket Docket IP blog, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)—the body that approves generic top–level domains like “.com” and “.edu”—is preparing to accept applications for candidates to greatly expand the number of names you can put after the “dot” in your web address. Beginning January 12, 2012, independent entities can apply to run their own registries of domain names (after meeting certain background requirements and forking over a $185,000 evaluation fee). As the universe of top–level domain names expands, so too may the obligation companies feel to protect their trademarks and names with defensive domain name purchases. While the ICANN proposal does provide for a trademark clearinghouse run by a neutral third party, this growth of dot–somethings adds to the burdens of businesses devoted to the protection of their intellectual property rights. The problem only compounds as Internet users appear to be relying more and more on search engines to find individual sites and pages rather than typing in the familiar “www….” Businesses may find themselves needing to pay more to defend their cyber–turf at the same time that turf is growing less valuable.

Posted by David Swetnam-Burland